Page 55 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Torches flickered at the edge of the field. Three of them, waving in the pattern I'd memorised from the briefing. Friendlies.

I moved toward them, keeping low, rifle in hand but not raised. No point antagonising the people who were supposed to help me.

Three figures resolved from the darkness. Two men in rough farm clothes, weathered faces that gave nothing away. And behind them, stepping forward with the unmistakable bearing of British military authority, a man I recognised from the briefing photographs.

Major Edward Hartley. SOE liaison. The officer who'd planned this operation from the safety of London and flown in ahead of me to oversee the final details.

“Sergeant Hale.” His voice was clipped, public school, the kind that expected immediate obedience. “Good drop?”

“Clean enough, sir.”

“Excellent. We've got a farmhouse half a mile from here. You'll rest there until dawn, then move to the observation point.” He gestured to the two Resistance fighters. “Pierre and Jean-Claude will guide you. They know the terrain.”

I nodded to the Frenchmen. They nodded back, faces unreadable. We didn't need to be friends. We just needed to work together long enough to kill one German officer and get out alive.

The farmhouse was exactly what I'd expected: stone walls, low ceilings, the smell of animals and old smoke. A woman who might have been Pierre's wife brought bread and cheese and wine that tasted like vinegar, and I ate mechanically, fuelling the machine that would need to perform in a few hours.

Major Hartley spread a map across the rough wooden table, anchoring the corners with stones.

“The crossroads,” he said, tapping a point I'd already memorised. “Brandt's convoy is expected at fourteen hundred hours. Three vehicles: lead car with security, staff car with the target, trailing vehicle with additional escort.”

“Rules of engagement?”

“One shot if possible. We don't want a firefight that alerts every German patrol in the region.” His eyes met mine. “You'll be positioned here, on this ridge. Good sightlines, natural cover. Range approximately three hundred metres.”

Three hundred metres. Child's play for a trained sniper. Close enough that wind wouldn't be a significant factor, far enough that I'd have time to withdraw before anyone could pinpoint my position.

“Extraction?”

“Pierre and Jean-Claude will guide you to a secondary location two kilometres north. We have a Lysander scheduled for tomorrow night, assuming the weather holds.”

Assuming. The word hung in the air. Nothing was certain in operations like this. Weather could turn. Patrols could stumble across us. The target could change his route, his timing, his entire itinerary.

“And if something goes wrong?”

Hartley's expression didn't change. “Then you improvise. That's what we trained you for.”

I looked at the map, at the crossroads where a man would die tomorrow, at the ridge where I would make it happen.Art's coordinates, transformed into terrain. His intelligence, transformed into firing angles and escape routes.

“Sir.” I kept my voice level. “The consequences of this. If Brandt dies, if the Germans trace it back to us. What happens to the people who provided the intelligence?”

Hartley frowned. “That's not your concern, Sergeant.”

“With respect, sir, it is. The decrypt that gave us this location came from people I work with. If there's blowback, if the Germans figure out how we knew?—”

“The intelligence chain is protected. Compartmentalised. Even if they suspect a leak, they won't be able to trace it back to source.” He studied me. “Is there a particular reason you're asking?”

Because Art's face haunted me. Because his coordinates might as well have been written in his own blood. Because if this mission somehow led the Germans back to Bletchley, back to the codebreakers, back to him...

“Just want to understand the full picture, sir.”

“The full picture is above your pay grade. Your job is to pull the trigger. Let the brass worry about the rest.”

I nodded, because that was all I could do. The brass would worry about the rest. And I would lie awake tonight, staring at a farmhouse ceiling, imagining every possible way this could go wrong.

Dawn came grey and cold, frost glittering on the fields like scattered diamonds.

I'd slept maybe two hours. Enough to take the edge off exhaustion, not enough to feel rested. Pierre brought coffee that was mostly chicory and a heel of bread that was mostly stale, and I ate and drank without tasting any of it.